Seattle Sounders FC and the Puget Sound soccer scene

June 15, 2014 1:09 pm

The Sounders trained at Starfire again today, moving up the pace a bit in advance of their Wednesday home match against amateur side PSA Elite.

Here’s some of what coach Sigi Schmid had to say about the session and the ongoing the U.S. Open Cup and World Cup.

On Sounders’ Sunday training goals: We wanted to do a little bit more today: just a little bit bigger spaces, a little bit bigger numbers, so we were able to do that. Continued to work on our running a little bit. Now we’ll ease down going into out game on Wednesday.

On NASL’s 3-0 Saturday against MLS teams in the Open Cup: All games are different. Obviously for all of those teams, they were at home, which makes a huge difference, not having to go through all the travel. With the exception of Red Bull, it’s not that extensive a travel, although it might have taken as long from them to get from New Jersey into New York City as to fly across country. Then it’s just the approach that each team took. Obviously leaving some key players at home. NASL is the second division, so it’s a level just a little bit below. You always take a little bit of a risk when you’re not playing your top team. I watched bits and pieces of a couple of the games. I didn’t see any of the RSL game, so I really can’t comment about that. But you’re playing against guys who are really motivated, trying to prove, ‘Hey, I belong where you’re at, and you belong where I’m at.’ That’s the attitude they go on the field with, and those are dangerous games. That’s what makes the FC Cup exciting in England, because those kinds of upsets happen. And here when they happen we start questioning whether one team’s better than the other. I don’t think you can evaluate the quality of the team until you go into a situation where it’s your first team against our first team and then we’ll see where we’re at.

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About

Don Ruiz has been covering the Seattle Sounders FC since their inception. Here he provides updates on news, views and developments of the South Sound soccer scene. Don also coordinates the UW Huskies Insider blog.

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